Our Weekly Snapshot

 Here's a quick glance at our week: 

Nate spent the weekend at his final winter retreat of the season with his two best friends.  Those three guys in the middle of the photo love hanging out.   Josh spent the weekend at my mom's (but he sent no pictures HA!) and Darryl and I went to Darryl's mom's for the day on Saturday for a family birthday party.  

Nate got home from camp on Sunday, took a quick nap (probably not really HA!) before heading to a Christian concert with two other great friends.  Usually I am his concert buddy but this time he LOVED going with friends.  While I missed being at the concert I am super happy that he got to enjoy it! 

On Tuesday my mom and I got to attend a ladies dine out with a bunch of ladies from our church. Great food and lots of laughs!  

The rest of our week was kind of quiet so I didn't take any photos until Friday

This is week 7 of our co-op and it was a great day! 

We played a favorite game in Joyful - I think they love it because they get to hit each other with a blow up bat HA! 

Josh's Decade's class - total they had a "Tupperware Party" and dressed for a decade.  Josh chose to dress like a preacher from the 40's.  He made Water Pie which is a recipe from my Grandma Mac.  

Book Club!  They read a book called "House on Cherry Street" and the author visited their class.  Avonlea attends our co-op and her son is one of Nate's best friends.  

Nate's News Crew class.  Nate has a love for writing and a love for this class! 

Since Josh was dressed up, he held the flag today for our opening. 

Finally, they always have fun in their games class. 

It's hard to believe that our Co-Op semester is almost done.  It's been such a great semester! 

Finally, Nate spent Friday evening with friends at a youth activity.  

Weekly Menu

 I mentioned to Darryl recently that I think I've reached a point of being "tired of planning and cooking meals."  I think after do it for 30 years my inspiration has died HA!  The down side to that?  I still have to do it because people still need to eat!!!!!  

February was a long month with sickness and other issues so I'm kind of excited to be looking into March and hoping for a much less eventful month!  

Friday - This is NOT our final co-op day - it was supposed to be but due to a cancellation a few weeks ago - we have one more day! .  We did order pizza though :-)  

Saturday - We are FINALLY going to my mom's for a regular Saturday Night dinner.  Between sickness and events on weekends these have been few and far between since January!  

Sunday - Without Football, I feel like I have a little more time to get dinner on the table after church (I didn't want to miss kick off!)  So I plan to have Stuffed Shells ready to go in the oven for dinner along with a salad and breadsticks

Monday - It is time to get back to some soups before it gets to hot for soup!  (I know, it is only March but still).  I've been craving my good broccoli cheddar noodle soup with ham steaks so that is what we will have! 

Tuesday - BBQ Cups and French Fries

Wednesday - Youth Group Night

Thursday - Well, tomorrow is PI day but we won't be home for dinner so I am serving my PI day menu tonight!  We have Quiche (because it is technically a pie), Stuffed Mushroom "pies" (because the caps look like pies) and. .. well . .. a pie HA! 

Recap of February Goals

 

February threw some hard curveballs at my planning.  I think we were some form of sick the entire month - the first person went down February 3rd and it just kept coming.  Darryl and I were still fighting the cough and being stuffed up right on into the last week of the month!  The weather was . . .. hard.  Lots of snow, cold, and icy roads.  Between sickness and weather most things were cancelled for several weeks.  Then our furnace blower motor died so we were without regular heat for a week.  And not a normal week - a week of arctic cold!  Plus my truck needs a tune up so it was giving me a few issues.  It. was. a . month.!  Sickness and heat issues really put a whammy in my goal planning though - no one wants to do much while they are coughing up a lung HA!  

So, this months update looks a little less successful and that's ok - things will just carry over to March and hopefully I can get extra stuff done! 

Here are my February goals:

1. Follow the declutter 365 plan for February and do every task that applies to me. I went through the February calendar and made a note of all that actually applied to my home and am now just trying to work through those items.  These will stretch into March. 
2. Follow Flylady weekly plan for decluttering then cleaning each room - 15 minutes at a time.  Since last month I only did one item each week my more specific goal this month is to accomplish at least 2 of the specific tasks each week. I am struggling with staying on top of this as well.  Again, just picking up in March and trying again. 
3. Pick a room cleaning - 15 minutes decluttering
1. Finish cleaning the bathroom (deep cleaning) as it was January's room. 
2. Begin the cleaning in the dining room.  I have some ideas to maybe rearrange a few things so we shall see if that happens!  Sickness = no cleaning. 
4. Spend 15-20 minutes a day cleaning the basement - this months goal is the laundry room side. The only people who did anything in my basement in February were the heating guys HA!  
5. Finish all of the odds and end in Josh's room (hang things, paint closet) Still working on this. 
6. Replace a board in Nate's bed that is broken. Still need to get this board
7. Replaced burned out lightbulbs inside and outside One down, at least 3 main ones to go!  Plus some not so main ones HA! 
8. Go on a date with Darryl  Success!  We actually went out to dinner on Valentine's Day after we sent the boys off to camp. 
9. Read!  As many books as possible but at least the 2 for my book clubs and to read 6 books total! I got stuck in a book that I thought would be good but it was not.  I finally gave myself permission to stop reading it and moved on.  I only got a couple of books read this month. 
10. Do my daily Bible study, prayer journal and word study Still trying to establish this habit. 
11. Scrapbook 
1. Finish 2017 and 2018 
2. Scrapbook January 2025
3. Upload February's photos and order them.
4. Do virtual scrapbooking weekend - Sickness = this did not happen. Several weekends I planned to scrapbook but just didn't have the mind set or energy to make it happen
12. Co-Op
1. Plan Joyful weeks 5-8 Done! 
2. Make Presentation Night signs
3. Work on my Joyful video.  
13. Practice my piano song until I can play it for offertory and then pick a new one; Practice a song with the family to do as special music. 
14. Update some seasonal items - St. Patrick's Day after Valentine's Day is done!  Done! 
15. Write my blogs each week  - Done! 
16. Celebrate Darryl's birthday  - Done!
17. Plan St. Patrick's Day - Done! 
18. Plan March goals/activities by the end of February - Including one Family activity for the first quarter of the year!  
19. Finances - continue to work on tracking everything and limit spending
20. Computer clean -up - Go through every file on my computer and clean things out. 

Megan Woods - Prayer and A Bible (Official Lyric Video)

Megan Woods is a new favorite artist of mine.  I love the depth of her voice as she praises Jesus.  This is a great "car song" - when I can play it loud!  

Weekly Snapshot

A quick look back at our week: 

We celebrated Darryl’s birthday. 

We played games at my moms

Took my brother to the airport. 

Josh and Nate enjoy hanging out with friends. 

Josh then continued to hang out with friends.  Nate is at winter retreat with another group of friends! 

Weekly Menu

 I'm a little bit in disbelief that February is done. February was a little tough due to illness but I am hoping that it is finally gone and we can move on into March all healthy!  It is time to get back to actually planning my menu instead of pulling it out of my brain HA!  I need to pull out my recipe file and plan some meals!!  

Friday - Nate is heading off to his third and final winter retreat with a friends church.  (Can you guess he LOVES camp!)  I’m guessing Darryl, Josh and I will grab something for dinner 

Saturday - we have a family birthday party with Darryl’s family 

Sunday - Turkey roast, potatoes, green beans and rolls 

Monday  - pot pies 

Tuesday - Tacos

Wednesday - youth group! 

Thursday - BBQ cups and fries

Joyful Weeks 4 and 5 - Our Co-Op

 We always start the same each week: 

1) This semester I am sharing a short devotional around the idea of why we memorize scripture.  I'm taking my thoughts from HERE.  There are 10 Biblical reasons to memorize scripture so I'm sharing one each week. 

2) We then do our Joyful Bucket.  Each student has to name one thing that brought them joy throughout the week.  Sometimes this is hard.  I try to help them understand that their item doesn't have to be a "thing" - something they did or experienced - but rather even something simple they saw that brought them true joy. They also get to chose something out of our treat bucket. 

3) We review our scripture memorization.  We spend the semester memorizing scripture that we then share at presentation night. 

What changes each week are our activities. 

Week 4 - This was our semester "Breakfast and Bingo" class!  It's the highlight of the class for sure.  Each semester I find a bingo board on Pinterest to use and print them off.  We start with breakfast where I supply sausage balls, muffins, donut holes, fruit, milk and juice.  Then we play bingo the rest of the hour!  

Week 5 - After fighting sickness in our house, I was not mentally prepared for planning our co-op HA!  So we had our first ever "game day".  Everyone could bring in board games and play with friends.  It went surprisingly well as in no one was left out and everyone played games the entire hour. 

Sometimes when planning a class, it is always good to have an "easy" idea for either a substitute or for weeks that just are busy!